The Road Less Traveled

We enjoyed a late breakfast at the hotel, which included my first Pfannkuchen in Berlin. It was much breadier and not as sugary as an American jelly donut—a good thing in my opinion. We took a few hours in the apartment to continue recovering from all the alcohol we had drunk the night before, then decided to get up and explore the city one last time.

We took the U-Bahn to see the Victory Column and Schloss Bellevue, the Presidential residence. From there we took a bus to Brandenburger Gate. We were taking pictures at the gate area when it started to rain. Hard. Thus, for the second time on the trip, the weather directed our vacation plans. Peter had been saying for a few days that we should take a bus tour to get a better view of the city, and to learn about things that he couldn’t explain. I had resisted because I hate feeling so touristy, and I like discovering things on my own. However, the rain and cold and general fatigue set in, and suddenly a tour seemed like a good idea. Fortunately, we were right next to a Berlin City Tour bus stop. For 15 Euros each, we got a nearly 2-hour ride around the city with a live tour guide who spoke English and German. Some of the sights we’d seen already, but the tour helped us enjoy things such as all the new embassies in Berlin, Nikolaiviertel (a harborside street of shops and restaurants in East Berlin), a stretch of the Berlin Wall I hadn’t seen, the museums of Museum Island, and the opera houses.

When we got off the tour, we took the U-Bahn back to Ku’damm and tried to find a place to dinner. Nothing appealed to Peter near Wittenburg Platz and we ended up at Joe’s near Zoologischer Garten. Peter thought it was even less appealing foodwise. We ordered a drink while we pondered our options. I ended up trying a Berliner Weisse, a beer that came served in a Klingon margarita-sized goblet with a shot of sweet green syrup in it. The syrup is made from an old forest herb called Waldmeister–literally, forest master, but translates into English as “woodruff.” Not something one would find in the spices section of the local markets in America. I was shocked that this was really beer. What happened to German Rheinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law?) The first sip was appalling, but it got better after that.

Anyway, after we finished our drinks, we agreed to go back to Wittenburg Platz near Ku’damm where we had seen three decent looking restaurants. I wouldn’t eat Mexican food in Berlin, and he didn’t like the looks of the German restaurant, so we settled literally in the middle for the Italian restaurant in between. I believe it was called Mola. They had huge brick oven pizzas. Fortunately, Peter and I both had a hankering for the Capricioza pizza (ham, olives, and artichokes) so we split that and a salad (same procedure as every restaurant). I was still hungry after that so I also had the embarrassingly named “Heisse Liebe” (hot love): a crepe filled with ice cream and topped with hot cherries. The crepe wasn’t the best but it hit the spot.

We spent the day napping and watching TV to save our energy for the night’s festivities. We managed to see “Dinner for One” in color for the first time. For those who do not know, “Dinner for One” is a one-act play that was recorded, in English, for German television in 1963. The story is of a 90-year old woman who has her four closest friends over for a multicourse dinner served by her butler, James. The problem is that her friends have been dead for 25 years. James must play the part of each of the friends, and drink a toast from each of them for each of the three courses that are served. The drunker he gets, the funnier the physical comedy and lines get. The classic line is when he asks, “same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?” “The same procedure as every year, James.” Ironically, nobody in England knows this play. But it’s as traditional in Germany as the ball dropping in Times Square in New York.

Anyway, we went to dinner around 7:30 p.m. at the Hotel Alt Berlin, a newly restored hotel near Potsdamer Platz. It was a small restaurant decorated with old photos and appliances (a plus for Peter who collects them). The servers were dressed in flapper dresses or tweed pants, suspenders, and caps in the style of the 1920s. The dinner was a buffet of fine deli meats, cheeses, canapés, soup, mayonnaise-based salads, two main entrees with sides, and three desserts. It also came with a complimentary rum punsch as well an aperitif. It was overpriced at 48 Euros each, but it was probably the best deal we could get for a dinner at a nice restaurant in Berlin on New Year’s Eve. And anyway, it was quiet and clean and we could relax and stay as long as we wanted there.

Around 10:30, we left the restaurant and walked up Potsdamer Strasse, past the modern glass towers that were the new homes to Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) and Sony and other fine businesses, towards the Brandenburg Gate to see the fireworks at midnight. Reportedly there were 1,000,000 between the gate and the Victory Column (Siegessaeule) for the concert and fireworks. Frankly, we never got close enough to count. We simply walked up Ebertstrasse until we ran into a crowd. Occasionally we could catch a glimpse of the Brandenburg Gate, but as it got closer to midnight, the crowd got thicker until we could barely breathe let alone see anything. Peter was shocked that people were setting off their own fireworks near the crowd up to an hour before midnight.

The official display was not as impressive as I thought it would be, but what there was we were in a great position to see through the barren winter tree in front of us. And maybe just being there was impressive enough. We enjoyed some champagne that Peter had brought in his backpack. The crowd dispersed remarkably quickly, the walk back to the U-Bahn was relatively easy, and the U-Bahn was not as crowded as I’d expected based on experiences in similar crowds in D.C. after fireworks and Presidential inaugurals.

We went to the hotel for our free breakfast. It ended at 10:00 a.m, but the hotel worker grudgingly let us in at 10:15 anyway. From there we decided to go back downtown towards the Reichstag. We took the U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz and followed the signs to the controversial “Denkmal fuer die ermordeten Juden Europas” (Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe).

At a glance from the street, the memorial looks like a cemetery without grass. The memorial has also been referred to as a field of stone. The stones are square and of varying heights and widths, arranged in straight columns. As one enters the memorial it feels like a dark grey maze where the stones get higher and the path beneath your feet becomes more hilly and slanted. It seems like something meant to evoke the fear and suffering of the Jews, but I can’t see how it had this affect at all. Moreover, there was nothing in this monument that had anything to do with the PEOPLE who died.

Fortunately, at the end of this maze we found the information center, which is more like a museum of the Holocaust and which more than makes up for the lack of pathos in the memorial itself. The museum begins with a timeline of the events of the Holocaust throughout Europe, including surprising places such as Greece. By the time we reached the end of this timeline, the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. This continued until the end of the exhibits.

In the next room, there were fragments of letters representative of the Holocaust, including a mother telling her husband that she and her daughter were safe, not knowing that they most certainly were not safe. Another letter was from a child telling her father that she was about to die, and she was scared. A third was from a man in a concentration camp or ghetto who cried out, “Where is God?”

In the third room, the focus shifted to families. In eleven examples, there was a family portrait accompanied by an explanation of their lives before the war, and the known fate of each person in the photo. In one case, no group portrait could be found; all photorecords of the family had been destroyed.

At the end of this tunnel was a small ray of light. There was a computer linked to a database of Yad Vashem. I was able to search for the name of my great-grandmother’s town, and then her family name (Lerman). If everything is accurate, then it seems her brother Dov in Israel reported that their brother Noah was a ritual slaughterer like their father, married, moved to a different town in Poland, and was killed there in 1942 at the age of 31. I’m not sure why knowing all this brings me comfort. Maybe just knowing there is a record of it somewhere helps.

After the museum, we pressed on to the Reichstag. We wanted to go in, but there was a giant line. It was cold and I was hungry and thirsty. We wanted currywurst (a Berlin original), but only saw stands outside. We ended up at Theodore Tucher, named for a famous cartoonist. The restaurant had a literary theme—there were shelves of books and esoteric quotes on plates and bathroom entrances.

It was here that we probably had the most expensive currywurst in Berlin. For 8 Euros, we got a foot-long sausage and a plate covered with a thin ketchup sauce, and curry powder arranged on the sauce in the shape of the Brandenburg Gate and the name of the restaurant. We also got bread. It was good, but not worth 8 dollars, even if President Clinton had had currywurst there too.

After lunch, I was in serious need of a nap. We went back to the hotel where Peter had coffee and then went out on his own to Kreuzberg, a formerly funky neighborhood of Berlin. We met up at 8:00 at Haus on Checkpoint Charlie. When it closed at 10, we probably still had another 15-30 minutes of the museum to cover. There was so much to read about the uprising against the Soviet East Germany on June 17, 1953, the construction of the wall in 1961, the world reaction to the uprising and the wall, the ways people escaped to West Berlin or died trying, the soldiers who helped and risked being fired or shot, and demonstrations against oppression behind the Iron Curtain and around the world.

It’s hard to believe that after all that, we were hungry. After looking unsuccessfully for places on Friederichstrasse and near Nikolaiviertel, we ended up at Brauhaus Mitte on Alexanderplatz, a touristy restaurant that had homebrewed beer and dishes from around Germany. We each had Mecklenburger potato casserole, like potatoes au gratin but with ham and vegetables and shared a salad. It hit the spot.

Arrival and hotel

After a nice breakfast for 3 Euros each at the Sleepy Lion Hostel in Leipzig, Peter and I drove up to Berlin. The roads were clear of snow and the drive was uneventful except for an “Unfall” (accident) on the A9 that shut down two of the three lanes of traffic. That cost us half an hour.

One thing about Berlin that is different from most other cities in the Western Hemisphere is that the numbers on the buildings are neither consecutive nor divided between odd on one side of the street and even on another. So we noticed right away that the numbers on the left went up to 80-81, then started going back down to 79, while on the right side of the street it went from 26 to 35 fairly quickly. Nonetheless, we found the Hotel-Pension-Gribnitz at 82 Kaiserdamm fairly easily. We checked in with a very friendly and informative clerk, then got directions to our apartment building about 100 meters from the main hotel. For only 62 Euros a night we got an apartment with two beds, TV, oven, sink, coffee maker, and private bathroom. Not bad in Berlin even with the exchange rate. And it is very clean and bright. We highly recommend it.

Gedaechtniskirche

We took an hour and a half to rest up, then finally decided around 3:30 it was probably time to head into the city. We walked around the corner and up one block to the Kaiserdamm U-Bahn stop, and arrived at Zoologischer Garten in 10 minutes. In another few minutes we were at our first sightseeing stop, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche. Wilhelm was the last Kaiser (ruler) of Germany before it became a democratic republic in 1918. “Gedaechtnis” means “memorial” in German, so the church was originally built as a memorial for the Kaiser. The church was bombed during WWII and was intentionally never restoredto become a memorial on another level. There is a round hole where a large plate of stained glass used to be. One can also see where the stones of the church got so hot they began to melt into each other. It was sobering to see stone walls looking like marshmallows. Nevertheless, life went on around it. The Christmas market with its stalls of wurst, gluhwein, cookies and toys was in full swing. Also open for business was the new church, a tall concrete grid with stained glass squares and a matching, shorter hexagonal building. A tour guide told us Berliners call it the lipstick case and powder box.

KaDeWe

From the Gedaechtniskirche, we walked on Tauentzienstrasse to Kaufhaus des Westens (literally “Buyhouse of the Westerners”), known affectionately as KaDeWe (pronounced Kah-Day-Vay). We went past the Louis Vitton, Clinique, and Polo Ralph Lauren counters up the escalators to the 6th floor, home of the gourmet food gallery and restaurants.

I’ve said in previous blogs that I don’t impress easily, but I was impressed by this floor. There were service counters with live lobster and fish, beautifully arranged salads and sandwiches, chicken, rabbit, Asian food, and sweets. There were also smaller restaurants where you could have a beer and a bratwurst or a Riesling and lobster tail (Hummer) or spiny lobster tail (Langoste). They even had jelly donuts, which outside of Berlin are called Berliners but at KaDeWe were called Pfannkuchen.

After taking a full tour of the floor and stopping to sample some excellent Russian vodka, Peter and I settled on the “Fishcutter’s” restaurant. We waited several minutes at the counter to order, then chose a plate of shrimp and a plate of swordsteak. The chef wrote down our orders, then told us to sit down anywhere. We chose a small table with stools and wondered how the server would find us. But sure enough in a few minutes a waiter brought our drinks (Prosecco for Peter, Riesling for me), salads, and French bread.

Again, I’ve never been one to think of myself as a gourmand or a food elitist by any stretch of the imagination. I appreciate good food but have never felt myself to be SENSITIVE to the difference between good food and bad food, until this meal. The Riesling was sweet and superbly smooth. The salad vegetables were very fresh. Even the bread was crusty on the outside and soft on the inside, just as experts say good French bread should be. I got two filets of swordsteak that were grilled to perfection. They were soft and very moist. They didn’t have a “fishy” taste. Even Peter, who doesn’t normally like fish, said it was very good. It came with cocktail sauce and garlic sauce which was simple but complemented the fish perfectly. Peter’s shrimp tasted very fresh. It wasn’t cheap—Peter’s dinner was 25 Euros, and mine was 18.50. But I think it was worth every bite.

Berlin by Night

After dinner, Peter and I walked back through the beautiful arts and crafts of the Gedaechtniskirche Christmas market and down the Kufurstendamm, a famous shopping street generally called the Ku’damm. Most of the stores were closed, though. We didn’t want to waste the evening, so Peter suggested we go the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which is open daily until 10 p.m. This is when we had our “Wenn einer eine Reise tut…” (When you travel, things happen) moment. The U-Bahn is under construction, but as in most train stations worldwide it’s hard to understand the announcements about it. All we know is we got on the train, went one stop, then the train returned to our first station. It turned out we needed to get off and take another train. We did that eventually, and made it to Checkpoint Charlie at 9:00 p.m.

When we arrived at the museum, we were told we would need at least an hour and a half to see the museum. I didn’t want to rush through it, especially since the museum would cost 9.50 Euros per person. Instead, we looked at the checkpoint and the lines in the street marking where the Berlin Wall had been. Then we walked past the new clothes and car shops on Friedrichstrasse to the Gendarmenmarkt, a marketplace sandwiched between the Franzoesischer Dom and the Deutscher Dom. They had a WinterZauber (Wintermagic) Market that was open at that time of day. Strangely, there was a 1-Euro entrance fee, so we decided to skip the market. We made it to Unter den Linden, a famous street in the former East Berlin. We saw the equally famous Hotel Adlon and the Russian Embassy. We saw the construction on the new American Embassy.

I got my first glance at the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate) at night. It was striking and beautiful, but I couldn’t get a decent shot on my cheap camera. Same for the Reichstag (which is only the name of the building now; the Parliament is referred to as the Bundestag). We also saw the new “Kanzleramt”, a building for the German Chancellor’s offices. Exhausted, we headed back to the S-Bahn at Unter den Linden and found our way back to the hotel.

Peter picked me up at the airport in Frankfurt at 7:30, and then we hit the road. The sun joined us around 9:00.

Our first stop was Leipzig. Peter found parking on the street downtown, then we walked towards the Thomaskirche, where Bach is buried. We only stayed a few minutes, long enough to hear a bit of the choir practice. We then walked through the downtown shopping district. We ended up having lunch at Karstadt, a national department store chain. I wasn’t impressed with the offerings at first, but Peter said the Leipzig Karstadt was nicer than the Mannheim one. Also, I was really starting to suffer from jet lag (or pure sleep lag) plus hunger so I realized I probably was not in any condition to go restaurant shopping. In the end I’m glad I tried the pasta with salmon and pesto cream sauce, even if the salmon was overfried, the pasta was greasy, and the service was slow. Peter got a vegetable buffet plate that was pretty good. Most importantly, the buffet area was clean, nicely decorated with dark wood tables and red plastic chairs, and had large bay windows so that we could look out and see the beautiful snow falling. This was the only snow we saw on the whole trip, and I was happy to see it.

The snow didn’t deter us from sightseeing. We walked to the Nikolaikirche, where the 1989 uprising against communism began in Germany, then walked through the Madler Passage to see Auerbachskeller, the restaurant where Goethe hung out when he was a student. However, the continuing falling snow meant it would not be a good idea to drive on and stay for the night somewhere closer to Berlin. The only place I knew in Leipzig was the Sleepy Lion Hostel. I had stayed there on my first visit to Leipzig in 2002 and loved it. Peter hated the idea of being in a hostel, but I assured him it would be comfortable. The worker was very nice—she gave us a quiet 6-bed room to ourselves for the price of a double (42 Euros).

We brought our luggage in from the car, fed the meter German style (put more money in, got a timed ticket on it, and put the ticket in the car on the dashboard), and went to the coffeeshop around the corner for 4:00 coffee. Then we took a 3-hour nap and headed back to Auerbachskeller for dinner. We both had Rouladen, thin strips of meat wrapped around onions, bacon, pickles, etc. Peter was shocked that this meat dish was served cold; he’d never had it cold before. The other shock of the night was a live play performed in the restaurant by a man pretending to be Mephistopheles, with another man playing the bewitched maiden. Oy.

After dinner, we stopped at one more café for gluhwein. This was the first time I’d been offered gluhwein with fruit in it. It wasn’t bad.

In the morning, I had breakfast at the Hotel Ibis with the Triki, Kemal, and Enrico, and gave them my business cards so they
could stay in touch. Then I checked out and said goodbye to the staff. They struggled to say goodbye to me in English, a gesture I appreciated.

School Visit

Elon came to pick me up and take me to Lycee Lome Cite, a school that one of the Togo seminar participants had invited me to visit. It was literally around the corner. I could see the hotel from the school. I thought it was awful that a car had been arranged to take me on such a short trip. I could have walked there and walked back to the hotel and slept some more before checking out. On the other hand, it was helpful to have Elon ask around and find Mr. Kogon, the man whose class I’d be visiting. It turned =out there was a primary school and a lycee on the same site. Elon asked around and finally we walked across the sandy playground to a room where we found Mr. Kogon. We sat in the school secretary’s office until we could meet with the principal of the whole school, who was an English teacher and had studied in the States. His English was great. I saw the 15 year old computer in his office that no longer worked so everything there is done by hand.

After the introduction, I walked down the corridor with Mr. Kogon. We said a brief hello to the Terminale (last year) students, then to the Premiere students, then came to the Seconde class I’d be observing. Even though in French “Premiere” means 1st and “Seconde” means second, the Seconde students were in their first year at the lycee; the numbering system goes
backwards. That took some getting used to, especially when I was reviewing the textbooks for the three levels.

Anyway, despite the fact that there were 76 white and khaki-uniformed students in the room and the primary school kids were noisily playing soccer outside (and they were easy to hear because there were no windows or even screens), Mr. Kogon did a good job of making the class fun and communicative. I spoke to them about 5 minutes, then went to say goodbye to the principal. On the way back to the car I saw the teacher’s room—a wooden table in a concrete room with some old bookcases. I still want to hug the walls of my teachers’ room at UCR Extension when I think of it.

Last Fou-Fou

Elon then took me to the program office. When Jean was ready, we got in a car with Elon and rode through the city to a restaurant to have my last fou-fou and meat and fish with the 6 people from DIFOP. It was clearly one of the nicer restaurants in the city—there was a lot of concrete and painted tables. The soap was liquid in a bottle, not cue stick chalk. We had forks
and knives to eat with. And we had coasters to cover our water glasses with to keep the bugs out. The bottlecaps were left on our beer bottles for the same reason. At one point I forgot and poured the bottlecap right into the glass. That meant I had to pour the beer out. :(Anyway, we had a very nice lunch together and it was a little sad to say goodbye to them.

Adventures in Shopping: Exploring the Grand Marche

We drove back to the program office, where I had about 4 hours to kill before driving back to Mary’s to shower up and rest before going to the airport. I checked my email at the American Cultural Center, then decided it was time to do some touring on my own.

The American Cultural Center is in the middle of the Grand Marche (the Grand Market). Each morning that week driving into the center we took a narrow dirt road that was crowded with stands and people selling goods. I decided to walk on the road at the other entrance; it looked wider and smoother. I got some nice jewelry on that side, then kept walking through narrower paths, trying not to get in the way of taxis, motorbikes, cloth and food sellers, and people carrying ungodly amounts of goods on their heads. I found my way to Rue du Commerce, and got hounded by men selling stuff. I needed souvenirs so that was okay, but when the drum sellers followed me with one of their friends for several blocks while he took me to his friend to sell me an overpriced music tape, I was irritated and heartbroken for them at the same time.

After buying the tape, I told the guy who’d led me there I had to go. But I told him to leave me too soon—I wasn’t where I thought I was. I wandered along a road I thought was the road back, but when I saw a streetlight I knew I was in the wrong place. I used my map to get me back, then ended up at a bus station at the beach. It was close to 4:00. I was afraid I was gonna have to take a taxi or mototaxi back if I didn’t find my way soon. But I gave the map one last try and soon I found myself at the doorstep of the American Cultural Center.

When I went upstairs I told Jean about my little adventure. My worried Togolese papa said, “I thought you were downstairs checking your email!” I said, “I was, then I went into the market.” All is well that ends well, though.

I said goodbye to everyone. Jean said goodbye as the French do, with a kiss on both cheeks. Mary took me to her nice big house, where I took a shower and watched her daughter play until Alex (another driver) came and took me to the airport. If Jean was my Togolese papa on this trip, Mary was my American mama. God bless her.

One of the teachers from the Lome seminar was outside the airport saying goodbye to her sister, who was off to Germany. It was a nice surprise to see her again, and a nice way to say goodbye to Togo. The expediter took me all the way to the waiting area at the gate. I sat on a nice leather couch until it was time to get on the plane. I made it through the long security line and survived the spraying of insecticide after the airplane doors closed. I survived the long bus rides and security lines in Paris to get to my connecting flight, and the 11 ½ hour flight from Paris to L.A. I got my car started again, got it washed, and survived
the 45-mile drive to my mother’s that took 2 hours. We were both excited to see each other again. And for the first time in a long time, California and my hometown looked like paradise to me.

NOTE: Photos of this part of the trip are online at photos.yahoo.com/reisefrau in the “Togo_Togoville” album.

The day after I got back from Kpalime, my program arranged a car and driver to take me and Nicole, a program officer who was based in Montreal but was doing temporary duty in Lome, to the nearby town of Togoville.

We had to stop at Mary’s so I could drop off my laundry. While I talked with Mary about my day’s activities, scrubbed the dirt out of my pants from Saturday’s hike, and heard the recount of her unfortunate food poisoning from something she ate in Tove on
Friday, Nicole stayed in the car and heard Eric’s (the driver’s) explanation of why he wouldn’t go in a pirogue (long canoe) across the lake to Togoville. But driving to Togoville would take a long time. So we were faced with the choice of either taking the shorter canoe and touring without Eric’s expertise, or spending 2 and a half hours in the car.

When we arrived at the small hotel where the pirogue landing was, Eric asked how long the boat ride to Togoville was. The worker said 45 minutes. Nicole didn’t want to spend all that extra time in the car, and I agreed it was a beautiful day for a boat ride.
Eric spoke in Ewe for a while and negotiated a price for us: 3,500 CFAs per person round trip, plus 3,000 for the tour guide. Any fees for seeing the fetish area would be extra. That seemed reasonable.

When it was time to get in the boat, Nicole noticed water. She asked if the boat was leaking, and she was assured it wasn’t. We got in the boat and were given front seats. A Chinese couple got in behind us. But Nicole heard them say that they heard the locals were being charged 150 CFAs for the ride, and the Chinese were being charged 2500. Normally that would have incensed me too, but I’d already paid so I didn’t care.

The ride over didn’t feel 45 minutes at all. It was leisurely and reminded Nicole of southern Louisiana, me of a boat ride in Florida. We enjoyed the view of the children playing in the water, and I enjoyed seeing them waving and hearing them say “au revoir” as
we went by. We saw a bar on the beach that looked good, and even the catamarans looked nice. When we arrived at Togoville, the man who crossed on the boat with us identified a tour guide who spoke English. The guide told us that Togoville was the
first city in Togo. At first it was called Toago, which means “the other side of the river”. When the Germans came, they changed the name to “Togostadt” (Togo City). When the French took it over after WWI, they changed it to its current name.

We saw a church that had been built by the Germans in 1910. Surprisingly, it started as a Protestant church and then later became a Catholic church. The paintings inside the church were Italian, but the Catholic series of paintings of the stages of the
death of Christ had German captions. There was a separate inner chapel with the image of the Virgin Mary. Our guide told us that in 1973, the Virgin Mary was seen out on the water. The boat where it was seen (or the boat the people were in when they
saw it, I don’t remember exactly) is preserved in painted concrete as a monument outside the church. Also outside was an outdoor chapel, built to accommodate people who came to hear the pope speak (in 1885 or 1984, I can’t remember which).

After touring the church, we walked through the town. We saw two women drawing water from the first well of Togoville. Nicole started to take a picture, but one of the women got very angry and yelled “cadeau!” (tip!). Nicole gave her 500 CFAs so we could take her picture. I thought that was too much, but Nicole said she did it to appease her anger.

Next, we saw the stalls where the Togoville market takes place, but it’s only open on Wednesdays. Perhaps 10 feet from the rows of wood covered with straw or tin was a beautiful red concrete sculpture of two people. Our guide told us that it was a statue
built in the 1980s as a symbol of German-Togalese unity. He challenged us to figure out which one was German and which one was Togolese, but Nicole immediately identified the one with the long square nose as German. I hadn’t noticed it, but after she
said that even I had to admit the flatter nose on the right looked typically Togolese.

Soon we were in a neighborhood that practices voodoo. We saw a statue for the male god of fertility. On top of this statue was a dead chicken. Our guide said the actual sacrifice left depends on the nature of the request made to the god. The sacrifice is made at night by initiates into the voodoo culture. Later, the animal is eaten.

After passing through a gate with a dove of peace on top, we saw the female fertility god. Unlike the male fertility god, who is open and in the sun, the female fertility god is covered with a straw roof to protect her and the children of Togoville. It seemed logical but I could also see how that could be used as a basis for discrimination against women. Nicole and I were asked to leave something for the god. Nicole and I both left money, and both prayed to the god of fertility NOT to get pregnant.

Our last stop was the artisans’ house. Outside, we saw a sculpture representing the older generation talking to the younger generation. Inside, we saw many nice but overpriced goods. I managed to bargain the most things down to half their sticker price, and get a discount on other things as well. Nicole, who has spent time in Benin, Nigeria, and Kenya, also drove a good hard bargain.

The worst experience of the day came as it was time to leave. Nicole and I had understood that there was a voodoo fetish market to see in Togoville. It was also our general understanding that we would pay a little extra for to see it, perhaps 1000-2000 CFAs. Instead, the president of the organization came out and asked each of us to pay 12,000 for the tour of Togoville we had just had. That’s $24 PER PERSON. Nicole became furious, and didn’t want to pay anything. I finally agreed we were only there once and should pay something. We bargained it down to 2500 CFAs each. However, I was under the impression that we were paying 2500 to go the fetish market. After we paid, though, we were led back toward the boat. There was no fetish market in Togoville. The whole thing left a bad taste in our mouths. It certainly made me less inclined to recommend such a tour to others.

To add insult to injury, when we got back to the beach someone from the boat asked me for a cadeau. He had followed me around Togoville, but I couldn’t figure out what he had done or why I should pay him a cadeau. He may have been the actual driver of the boat, but if that was the case, who was the other man we’d paid 3500?

Then the man we understood to be the boat man (whom we had paid 3500 for the boat ride) asked for his 3000 for the tour. Nicole was again stunned. We had paid the 3000 to the man at Togoville who actually spoke English and took us around. The only thing the boat man had done was identify the tour guide and follow us around the city. Moreover, I was out of money except
what was in my money belt (which I didn’t want to dip into in public) and Nicole only had a 5000 note. Plus, the boat man had seen Nicole and I give the 3000 to the tour guide; if that was wrong, why didn’t he stop that transaction or take the money before the tour guide got it? Eric was caught in the middle of the argument. He said the boat man admitted it was his mistake, but still seemed to expect something. I went through my small change and Eric gave 1000 of his own money, so the boat man still got 2000. By the time Nicole and I got in the car, we felt completely shaken down.

Nicole and I discussed this issue further. We concluded that the conflict was purely a cultural one. In America and Europe, we are accustomed to seeing a price first, and then deciding from there if it’s worth spending the money. Or at least being prepared
to pay a certain amount in a situation and if it’s a little over, that’s okay. But in this situation, we felt blindsided.

NOTE: Photos of this part of the trip are online at photos.yahoo.com/reisefrau in the “Togo_Kpalime” album.

Around Wednesday of my week in Kpalime, I started thinking that I didn’t want to go back to Lome. Kpalime was more beautiful and more peaceful. If I went back to Lome, I would end up wasting away Saturday in the Hotel Ibis compound.

Jul and Karoline said there was much to see around Kpalime, and they could arrange a tour guide and a private taxi for me to go on the tour and then back to Lome. Jean was a little nervous at first about leaving me on my own, but Karoline and Jul assured him
that Jul would only choose a guide and driver they had used before and knew was reliable and safe. Jul would also be there to help me negotiate the prices. So it was agreed that I would stay in Kpalime Friday night, take a tour of Kpalime Saturday, and return to the hotel in Lome Saturday night.

On Saturday morning I went to the hotel reception at 8:30, the time Jul had agreed on with the taxi driver and guide. That meant I really had until 9:00, since one can generally count on Togolese to be half an hour late. I sat down and ordered breakfast. But it turned out the driver and guide had arrived at 8:30; I was the one who was running late. Jul said not to worry, I had time. After I finished breakfast, Jul asked the taxi driver to come inside to negotiate the price. I knew from Karoline and Elon (the program driver to Tove) that it should cost 15,000 CFAs to go from Kpalime to Lome. Only the price for the tour around Kpalime was in doubt. The driver offered a first price of 50,000 for the tour and the drive to Kpalime. I said I thought it would be 30,000 total. We agreed on a price of 40,000. Then the tour guide, also named Jean, came in, and we agreed on a price of 10,000 for the tour.

Before I left, I ordered a small bottle of water. Jul told me I would need a big water bottle. Then he noticed I didn’t have a jacket, and went to get one for me so I wouldn’t be cold in the mountains. It turned out I needed the big bottle of water. I never needed the jacket—I was sweating most of the time. But both gestures were equally appreciated.

I got in the car and we headed off for the mountains. The driver was very careful; at every turn he honked to let cars coming down know there was a car coming up. We stopped briefly to pay a “cadeau”, in Togo a euphemism for bribe, to the police who were guarding the mountain.

We drove off the main road onto a dirt one for maybe 1 km. Then Jean and I got out of the car. Jean led me on a dirt path to the top of Mont Klouto (Turtle Mountain). He explained that in the past there had been many turtles at the top of the mountain. Over
time they had been hunted and eventually they disappeared. In the distance I could see a chateau now owned by the President, and the town of Kouma.

Soon we left the mountaintop and started walking on a wooded trail. Along the way, Jean explained the trees, foliage, and insects.

The plants

Jean showed me a plant with large leaves with hot pink and white specks on them. He said the plant was called “painter’s palette”, and it wasn’t hard to see why. He offered to let me take a leaf, but I told him my country would never let me take something like that into the country because of pest control regulations. On another level, I didn’t like the idea of taking
something out of nature as a souvenir.

Jean showed me a plant with thin fronds. He touched the fronds and they immediately closed up. It looked like a thinner version of the Venus flytrap. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name now and the pictures didn’t turn out well.

Jean took one small, prickly green plant from a tree and broke it open. Inside were small red pods that looked similar to pomegranate seeds. He squeezed one of the pods, and bright red-orange dye oozed out. Jean said this was a natural dye for the batik and other fabrics that could be bought in Togo. Then he rubbed some of the dye on my arms and forehead. I couldn’t believe how strong it was. It seemed amazing that this would be available to people. Again, Jean offered to give me a pod to take home but I declined.

Later in the hike, I saw taro plants growing in front of a house. Taro is a kind of root, similar to a potato or yam. I also saw taro plants in their early stages of development, wrapped in small plastic bags of dirt.

I saw a pineapple growing on a plant for the first time, as well as coffee beans on trees. Seeing these things made me think that maybe I’m ready to go to Hawaii and enjoy it.

The trees

The first tree Jean pointed out to me was the baobob tree, which has a large, broad grey trunk and bushy leaves. The darker tree I saw next was teak, a popular wood for fires, furniture, and carving. Mary had told me earlier that fortunately, teak trees grow
quickly. The palm trees were easy to identify by their fronds. In the village I saw bananas growing in bunches on banana trees outside someone’s farm.

The most shocking sight was the avocado tree. I didn’t even know avocados grew on trees. And it surprised me that avocados could grow in Africa in general. But since Togo has a rainy season and a dry season, avocados can grow in Togo in the dry season.

The insects

On the ground, I saw a group of large black ants that seemed to be burrowing lines in the dirt. Jean said they were not ants; they were termites. Jean said to be careful not to let a termite get on me; they can bite. Jean next pointed out a grasshopper. Its wings were green, but its body was yellow with blue, black, red, and white circles and stripes. Its legs were red, black and white. It was as colorful as the clothes I’d been buying in Kpalime all week. It seemed amazing that such a colorful creature could survive in Africa. Could it be that it was put there by the Creator so Africans would have a model for their beautiful and successful cloth business? I also saw a beautiful butterfly here. People catch butterflies here, then mount them and sell the displays.

The village

We walked along a small brook which for some reason reminded me of a similar stream I’d seen on a hike outside of Philadelphia years ago. From there we went into and through the village of Kouma-Tokpli. Jean said all of the villages in the region started with
the name Kouma; only the second name was different.

The entrance into the village was one dirt road with goats on it. At the end of this road was the town. There was a communal tap for washing clothes, and perhaps for drinking and cooking water; I’m not totally sure. I saw a dirty pink and blue house. Next
to it was a brick house with no roof. The brick house looked wet and lined with moss. I asked Jean about it. He said the owner probably started constructing a new house, but ran out of money before he could finish. Then the rain brought it to ruins. It was too sad to take a picture of.

On the other side of this road was a concrete farmhouse for the goats. I asked if it had been built with help from foreigners, since it didn’t look like the villagers had enough money to build that. Jean said that indeed it was. Next to the farmhouse was a church. The church was a mix of mudbrick and concrete with a hand-painted white cross on the side. Inside there were plain wood benches.

The other main village road was a rutted dirt one with a row of yellow mud brick houses. Although I saw many women washing clothes and hanging them out to dry, I also saw children wearing mismatched, oversized, dirty clothes. When they saw me, some simply stared as though I were the first white person they had ever seen. Some smiled and waved, and I waved back. Still others walked behind me and asked for a cadeau.

Around the corner, we saw a mudbrick house and mudbrick hut where an old woman and her many children (or grandchildren?) lived. The hut was a kitchen where maize was being cooked. Outside the hut, the old woman had an iron pot of hot water cooking on an open fire. Jean asked for permission for me to take a picture. The woman agreed. I took a picture of one of the children next to the hut. I still couldn’t bring myself to take a picture of the woman. I was feeling very self-conscious about exploiting the
villagers. I was feeling guilty for having so many amenities. I was seeing close up how really limited their lives were by Western standards. Although I’d had many discussions with Jul and others about how difficult it was to change things in Africa, I still
wondered how it was the developed world had allowed Africa to continue living the way Americans had 100 or 200 years before. Before leaving, I gave the woman 100 CFAs and said “merci, Maman” (thank you, Mama). I’m not sure if that was the right word, but it was the only thing I could think of to show my respect.

Return to

On the road back to the car, Jean point out a dirt tower. He said it had been created by termites. Back at the car, we met a butterfly catcher, and even though I was worried about exceeding baggage limits, I bought a butterfly display.

We got in the car and started driving towards the chateau/schloss that had been built by a German and was now a home for the President of Togo. However, the road to the chateau was closed to cars. We started walking for a while, but I was pretty tired from the previous hike. I asked Jean how far it was, and he said it was another 15 minutes on foot. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort, especially since we had a villager waiting in the car for a ride down to the market.

The waterfalls

We walked back to the car and drove to Kpalime falls. The water that runs to these falls is used in Voltic water, the local mineral water which is very good. I took a picture. Jean started leading me on a short hike down to the falls, but the terrain was very steep with slippery rocks. When I slipped I only got dirty, but I decided it wasn’t worth going straight down a mountain for 10 feet to see something I could see quite clearly from the road.

We got back in the car and drove on. We drove past the Hotel Royal and through the center of Kpalime. As we drove on, I wondered where we were going. We turned off the paved road onto a dirt road in the town of Wome. Along the way, a man hissed at us. (Hissing is a common way of getting attention here). Jean told him we were going to the falls. The man warned us that the president of the village was at the falls, and he would be expecting a cadeau to enjoy the falls.

As we were going along, the driver stopped the car. He said there was a part of the road that would be too dangerous to drive along. I asked how many kilometers it would be to walk to the falls, and Jean said it wasn’t that far. We walked along a sunny path for a while, and saw another car that had made it farther in. Then we started a descent down another steep slope. This wasn’t as steep or slippery as the Kpalime falls, but it was longer and I had to take every step on crude mud cutouts or high rocky steps very carefully. As I got near the bottom I got more scared and more frustrated. I felt I hadn’t been prepared for such a strenuous hike. It seemed to me Jean didn’t understand that I was a city girl; I wasn’t a Peace Corps volunteer. All Jean kept saying was “doucement” (go slowly). I wanted to scream that going slowly wasn’t always enough; I needed balance and precision
in choosing the next step. I should add here that we skipped lunch, and I’ve been told that I get cranky when I’m hungry, so this could have been a factor as well. Anyway, I used my large water bottle as a cane where I could, but eventually I asked Jean to hold my hand to lead me through one of the more difficult parts of the hike.

We finally made it to the falls. The water was rushing faster here than in Kpalime, and there was a pool of water that whites and blacks were swimming in together. It looked very refreshing, but I hadn’t brought my swimsuit. Even if I had felt brave enough
to go in my undies, I wouldn’t have had a towel to dry everything off before walking back to the car. And anyway, we had to be back at the hotel by 3:30 so I could be on the road and in Lome before dark, so I still wouldn’t have had time to swim. Still, I thought it would have been nice for Jean to mention that swimming was an option.

After a few minutes of splashing water on my face, watching others frolic in the water, and paying the cadeau, we started the journey back to the car. As we started going up the steps, Jean asked if I was making it okay. I replied in French, “I have to be okay. I can’t stay here.” The reality is I strained my right thigh and was limping up and down steps for the next few days. But I guess the pictures I got were worth it.

We finally made it back to the car, and returned to the hotel almost exactly at 3:30 pm. I had said 3:30 because I wanted to leave at 4 to get back to Lome before dark. Since I had time and hadn’t eaten lunch, I decided to have the “gemischter salat” (mixed salad). Although Mary had warned me about the lettuce, Karoline said she wasn’t worried about it, and I trusted her. I started pushing away the onions in the salad, but then she pointed out that onions are good for “blutdruck” (blood pressure) and other potential ailments.

When I paid the final bill, my change was given to me in a wooden box with two pieces of candy—with Korean writing on them (Hin Young Coffee Candy). What are the odds of an American being in West Africa and getting coffee candy with Korean lettering that she can read? It was one more sign that my being at Hotel Royal was, as the Jews say, bescheert (meant to be).

After I finished my salad (onions included), It was time to say goodbye. I took one more picture of Jul in his Austrian hat and African top. I took pictures of the two staff workers who had served me all week, who were sweet but whom Karoline had complained at length could not do anything unless Jul and Karoline told them to do it. I hugged Karoline and Jul and promised to email, send copies of the pictures I’d taken, and come back to visit them someday.

It was 4:30 when I started on the road with the taxi driver. We didn’t get far when we hit a police checkpoint (read: cadeau collection point). I’m not sure how long it took for the taxi driver to negotiate a fair price, but it felt like 15-30 minutes. I kept
looking back at the driver and the police occasionally as if to say with my face, “you are keeping a yovo (white person) waiting and that is not polite.” Someone later told me I should have said I was a Peace Corps volunteer, but another person said I was right not to get out of the car and get involved.

We finally hit the road again. Along the way, the driver pointed out that the road we were on goes along the Ghana border, so I could see Ghana from the road. While we were stopped and trying to get a picture, a child walked up to me holding a dead squirrel by the tail, presumably for sale. I was horrified.

Although I had the goal of returning to Lome before dark, with the late start and long cadeau stop it got dark about 15 or 30 kilometers outside the city. There are no streetlights except in Lome, and we shared the narrow road with the cars on the other side and motorbikes and bicycles on both sides so we really had to slow down a lot. Sometimes it was hard to see the bicycles, and even when we could we sometimes passed bikes so closely I thought they would fall over from the draft alone. The driver did a great job with it all though.

Back at Hotel Ibis

When I got back to the hotel and checked in, I took a long shower to wash off all the dirt of the day. Then I went to the usual restaurant for dinner. I saw Enrico and Herbert, a new Brasserie person from Koeln (Cologne, Germany). We talked about the English language and Germany. I told my Koeln reibekuchen (potato pancake) story. He said that the reibekuchen stand was torn down when the square was redone for the pope’s Youth Day. Many people were sad to hear it was gone, including me.

After a lovely dinner of game fowl in peanut sauce with rice, I decided to order pineapple for dessert. Enrico ordered chocolate mousse, but was told he couldn’t have any. I asked the waiter to make the mousse for “my friend”. He obliged, and got a second order in for Miguel from Portugal. My inner Washingtonian was pleased at the power I had. On the other hand, I thought it was wrong of the hotel to withhold and give a dessert on the basis of personal relationships.

During one of the coffee breaks, I asked Jean about a man who was wearing a knit skullcap and a beautiful suit. I wondered if he was a Muslim. Jean said he was a village chief who also teaches at a school in another town. Admiring his beautiful clothes, I asked if the villagers paid a tax to the chief (to support his lifestyle). Jean replied it was quite the opposite. Villagers can come to the chief for help with a problem, or to settle a dispute. If the villager has done something wrong, the chief charges a fine. If he helps a villager with something, he may ask for any kind of payment “to return to his house” since he was brought out of his house to solve the problem. But that money and those goods get used to help others in need. Being the village chief is not a job of luxury. To me, he is like the village social worker.

The photographers

It was also during this break that many teachers asked to have their picture taken with me. There were two photographers running around taking pictures of everyone, then charging them 300 francs for a copy of the prints. I bought several pictures of myself. By the end of the week, though, I found their aggressiveness irritating. For example, the photographers wanted me to buy all of the pictures that were taken of me; they couldn’t understand why I didn’t want a picture with my eyes closed or looking away from the camera. On Friday, one photographer tried to sell pictures to me even as he saw me getting in the car.

This story actually begins on my second Saturday in Togo, when I began writing postcards in the car on the long ride from Kara to Lome. I asked Jean about where to get stamps, and he suggested I ask at the hotel. He said there was one price for stamps to Europe, and one for stamps to the US. He wasn’t sure what the price to Japan would be.

While waiting for Mary to pick me up to go to a nightclub for djambe and music, I went to the front desk and got a quote: 950 for stamps to the U.S. and Europe, 750 to Japan. I asked if she was sure, and told her my friend had told me the price for Europe
and the U.S. should be different. She said she was sure. I handed over the money, and then she said I should give her the cards and she would mail them. I said I’d like her to give ME the stamps to put on the cards, and I would mail them. I wanted to make sure the cards were actually stamped, not left to sit on the desk while she pocketed the money.

That’s when she said that she didn’t have the stamps. They would be delivered on Monday. I smelled a rat. At the same time, I didn’t want to be overly paranoid. I decided to wait for Mary to come and pick me up. When she arrived, I told her the situation. She said 950 CFAs seemed very high for stamps. She suggested I take the cards back and get my money back, which I did.

On Tuesday morning before the seminar in Kpalime started, I went with Jean to the post office in Kpalime. We had to go in the morning because the post office closes for lunch from 12:00 to 14:30 and then opens again until 4:00; I had seminars in the
afternoon. Jean asked and was told that the price was 650 for the U.S. and Asia, and 550 for Europe. I found myself irritated with the woman at the hotel for trying to rip me off, and relieved that I hadn’t left my money or cards there.